


Reemergence of Stars

by Nellsie



Category: Falsettos - Lapine/Finn
Genre: Bittersweet, Extended Metaphors, Gay Marvin (Falsettos), M/M, Marvin (Falsettos) Being an Asshole
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-05
Updated: 2018-09-05
Packaged: 2019-07-07 04:58:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15901356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nellsie/pseuds/Nellsie
Summary: Marvin, some escapist fantasies, space, cliffsides, and stars.





	Reemergence of Stars

**Author's Note:**

> one big old extended metaphor that i came up with when i was bored and decided to run with.

When Marvin is with Trina, he floats in the dead of space.

It isn’t uncomfortable or suffocating, (unless Marvin dedicates more to his act than is necessary, in which case it is both of those things and more) it is simply nothing. It is empty, starless space, and it surrounds him for light years. It’s familiar, at least.

(Familiar to Marvin and Trina. Familiar to Marvin and his highschool sweetheart. Familiar to Marvin and any woman he happens to be tugging behind him in life at the time.)

There is nothing about space, or its vast endlessness that shows no sign of subsiding, that intimidates Marvin. He knows it far too well.

If he tries, he can bring himself back to reality and focus on what is real. He can touch Trina, kiss her, etcetera. He can mentally compare her to every other woman he has been with, or thought of, or convinced himself that he wanted. He can prove to himself, if only for a second, that this woman is what he wants. He can prove to himself that he wants women at all.

He can try, with an ocean’s length of difficulty, to make something in himself stir at the sight of her. He can try to feel something for her, past the platonic.

He can touch her eyelids when she blinks, and watch as she cracks a smile and a little laugh, (which he supposes is cute) and he can stroke her cheek and press his thumb against her lips, and he can kiss her while she is starry-eyed and joyful. And, in contrast, he can feel nothing at all.

In Marvin’s head, Trina is _filled_ with dead space. She is perfectly _there,_ inconsequential to his story. She can be replaced with any woman imaginable, because all of them make him feel exactly the same. He’d never say that. It’s a horrible thing to think, even; but everything in him, everything about him, screams that it is the truth.

He resolves to float in space. To separate himself entirely, and so he does. He floats in the deadest space imaginable, and he closes his eyes and lets himself get lost in that nothingness, and when he opens them, he feels like he could drown in this emptiness, completely at peace.

Forward bound, into the darkness. Face no obstacles, and work through no difficulty. You will be wrapped in adoration, and you will be promised safety. And should you keep at it, you will be rewarded. The starless, invisible horizon lies ahead.

(Space has no limitations, and yet it can feel so limited.)

* * *

When Marvin jumps the ship and risks his safety, he finds Whizzer.

Whizzer is striking in the sense that most men are. Marvin won’t claim that his reasoning isn’t shallow. Whizzer is clean and stylish and easy on the eyes, but he is also a man who is willing to entangle himself with Marvin, which puts him a few notches above other men. Still, Marvin can live in reality, with Whizzer.

Reality is usually laden with sex, which is nice—incredibly nice, in fact. It can be slow and sensuous, but most of the time it is quick and secretive (dead space is waiting) and when it isn’t, it is characterized by laughter and playful insults and sweat and saliva and other bodily fluids. And it’s great! The best Marvin has had, and Marvin was once very off put by sex.

(In theory, it would be good. In theory it would be soft and easy and natural. In practice, however, Marvin would be in bed with Trina and he would fall so deeply into space that he could sleep in it, and if he tried to bring himself back to reality he would see her and that tight, suffocating feeling would close in on him.)

With Whizzer, it’s all practice and no theory, and it’s lovely.

Whizzer is something worthwhile, and Marvin likens him to a cliffside. He is perilous—sensitive and judgemental, often easy to offend—and everything in Marvin’s body should scream _no!_ when he scrambles to the edge, but there is something to be said for the rush of adrenaline. Looking over the cliff, into the drop below, and choosing to stay and chat.

It can be angry. It can be ruinous. It can be irritating and awful and regretful, but at least it can be _something_ —there is never apathy, and Marvin never has to sink into the starless sky.

And with Whizzer, it can be _ecstatic._ To kiss him is to scale a mountain, and to seek him out is to crave the heights, the danger, and intrigue. The reemergence of stars is on the horizon, and with Whizzer, Marvin can see every supernova. He can observe the death and rebirth of suns. He is not in space, and he is not on a cliffside—he is somewhere else. He is somewhere _different,_ and he is drunk on that difference.

* * *

Trina says, “I had a dream where we slept in bed together,” which is something they haven’t done in months. She says, “I don’t want you to go.”

And Marvin says, very calmly, “It’s for the best.”

“The best for _you,_ Marvin,” says Trina, “What about Jason? And what about _me?”_

Marvin can feel the gravity giving out beneath him, but he keeps his feet firmly planted on the ground. “This is much better for the both of us,” he says.

(Comfortable, empty space is beckoning to him, but he knows it would be impossible to go back to it now.)

* * *

To bring together a cliffside and space itself is to bring together… a cliffside and space itself. It is impossible, but Marvin feels that if he must tug the two of them together, then he will.

His selfishness, as it turns out, is the detriment of both cliffsides and space itself.

Marvin rejects the notion of Mendel and Trina, because for a man to see the stardust in a woman who was empty space to Marvin is impossible. For Trina to move past Marvin,

(who is self-centered and shallow and selfish)

is a loss he cannot comprehend, because who could move past him?

And for Jason to reject Marvin is impossible. For Jason to be _ashamed_ of him? It is unfathomable, but the truth rears its ugly head once again and Marvin must remember—

(stars. So many stars above the horizon. Supernovas and meteors and _stars.)_

That is until Whizzer walks out, and then there is no cliffside from which to watch the stars. At least, not for a little while.

And then he hears of the proposal, and suddenly there is no space or stars or cliffsides. There is simply burning anger, and it is so rooted in foolishness.

Marvin is a conceited explorer, who cannot picture the idea that the places he visits change when he is not there. He is a selfish man, who desires everything while giving nothing.

He is a lonely astronaut, floating in space.

* * *

Two years pass, and Marvin puts everything back together like a puzzle.

Jason, and Trina, and Mendel are all facts of life, and he can bring himself to admit that much. Some are wonderful, others are sentimental, and some he must simply come to live with.

Still, when _Whizzer_ reappears, well—Marvin cannot get himself lost in too many romantic delusions. It is what it is, but then when Whizzer looks at him like _that_ —

(it’s like every star reforms just then, into something different but still beautiful. Made of the same things, with a younger foundation.)

Marvin tries to bring space and the cliffside together again, and it works this time.

(For only a little while.)

* * *

When it is all over, Marvin almost slips into space again, but he has a feeling that if he lets himself drown now, he won’t be able to will himself back.

(“You’re so dramatic,” says the memory of the dead cliffside.)

Instead, Marvin stands at the abandoned cliffside in his mind, and a lonely star shines over the darkened horizon. The reemergence of stars is on the horizon, and the death of suns is complemented by the rebirth of others.

**Author's Note:**

> alright, so here's the thing.  
> marvin is by no means a good person, at least not until falsettoland. however, this fic is from his point of view and was written at midnight on a school night, so you'll have to forgive me for not highlighting his selfishness more.
> 
> i briefly considered making a few extra chapters using similar metaphors but from other character's point of view, that way you get a clearer scope of both marvin's bad character traits as well as everyone else's fucken... space allegories. trina specifically would be a focus, because i absolutely fucking love her.
> 
> also jason is barely mentioned in this which is unfortunate but rest assured he definitely like. exists.


End file.
